The Price of Paradise
by Sarah1281
Summary: The Lorax had done it. The forest would be protected and the Once-ler would chop down no more trees. The outcome was, for the most part, good but the cost had been heavy indeed. It was never supposed to have been like this but there was no going back now


The Price of Paradise

Disclaimer: I do not own the Lorax.

Note: A little what-if piece because things could have turned out _really badly_.

The Lorax looked around mournfully. At first glance, it would be difficult to see just what he was upset about.

It was a beautiful summer day. There were Truffula trees everywhere the eye could see and he knew that they extended far past his own limited line of sight.

There was one fallen tree but the ring of stones surrounding it remained as a sign of respect and it would not be forgotten.

The animals were happy and frolicking and much the same as they were before he had been summoned.

There were no humans in the area. There was a small town located not that far away, really, but they had never been interested in the paradise to be found in their own backyards .Part of the Lorax regretted that they didn't appreciate what they had but mostly he was relieved that they didn't risk destroying this place with their interest. Humans had a way of changing the places they went in a way that other creatures never did. They never had to _try_ to destroy something.

There was also an abandoned home still sitting in the middle of the forest. The Once-ler's home. It hadn't been abandoned intentionally and it only still stood because the Lorax didn't know how to get rid of it. It also served as a reminder of the price he had paid to keep this forest pure and perfect. He didn't **need** a reminder but there was no escaping it.

The Once-ler was different than the humans of the town. He was different than any of the humans that the Lorax had met, though admittedly that hadn't been a lot. He had come to find success and he intended to chop down trees in order to do it.

The Lorax had tried to warn him. He really, truly had. He had done his best to explain why it was so important to leave the trees be but it was just such an instinctive and obvious need for him that he wasn't sure how well he had succeeded in putting this conviction that the Once-ler clearly did not feel into words.

Maybe he had been a little hasty in only giving the kid until the end of the day to leave. He had no one with him but what must have been everything he owned in that wagon of his. He might not even have had anyplace else to go and needed time to look for a place. And since the idea of protecting the trees was so foreign to him, giving him a little more time to think about it wouldn't have been out of place. And who knew? The Once-ler had only cut down the one tree though he'd been there all day. Perhaps he'd even changed his mind already and the Lorax's intervention had been unnecessary.

The Lorax didn't want to think about any of that, especially that last possibility, because it only added to the senselessness of what had happened. Sometimes he managed to forget for awhile but then something would inevitably remind him again. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see was that last moment before…the moment he understood that he had failed and crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. It didn't matter if he hadn't meant it because, like a human, he had done it anyway.

All he had been thinking about – had he been thinking at all? – was that the kid was a threat and that nothing good could come from his presence. He had to get him out of the way as soon as possible before something else went wrong.

The Once-ler hadn't seemed to take his warning seriously (or else why did he say that he wouldn't leave?) and so he had to have some sort of follow-through or he wouldn't be taken seriously. He had spent the whole time hoping that the Once-ler would change his mind but he never did, or at least never let him know.

It had taken him _hours _to think of an appropriate way to carry out his vow. Finally, as the sun was setting, the idea to just let the river take care of his problem for him occurred to him. The Once-ler would wake up somewhere miles away and it would be too much trouble to come back. Maybe. It wasn't the most guaranteed of plans but he hadn't had any better ideas and he'd been out of time.

It wasn't without it's hitches from the start. The animals had a great deal of difficulty getting the bed out of the house. Not that he was corrupting them or anything. He had to take the bed, despite the difficulty, as throwing the Once-ler straight into the water would risk waking him up or having him drown.

The Lorax never intended to kill him.

He probably would never have known what happened if Pipsqueak hadn't stayed on the bed and ignored their efforts to retrieve him. He wouldn't have seen the need to follow along and watch the kid drift out of sight.

But Pipsqueak had been there and so he _had_ seen it.

He had seen the Once-ler's toe dipping into the water and altering his course. He had seen the Once-ler awake, confused, and start to panic. He had seen the bed approaching the waterfall. He had seen the Once-ler and Pipsqueak cling to each other as they neared the end.

He had tried to save them, of course. He had only been trying to save Pipsqueak from ending up miles away but he would have tried to save the Once-ler's life even without Pipsqueak's involvement.

He had dropped a conveniently placed giant boulder into the water in the hopes that it would fling the imperiled pair back on land.

He should have known that it wouldn't work. All it had done was drench the Once-ler and Pipsqueak and forced him to view them going over the waterfall through a curtain of water.

His ears still rang from time to time with that terrible silence, that end to the screaming that meant that they were beyond screaming.

He and the other animals had hurried to the bottom of the waterfall anyway, determined to save them if they could. Ironically, it was quite easy to pull them out of the water but, of course, it was too late. The height or the rocks or the water had killed them and no amount of shocking them could bring them back.

The Lorax was not a psychic creature and he could not see what was to come or what might have been.

The Once-ler was just one person. How bad could it have possibly been? He didn't know and now he would never know.

There was no longer any risk. There was only the forest, protected though by blood. The blood of a short-sighted but not bad child and that of an innocent animal.

He had succeeded in protecting the forest but at what cost? He was a killer now, however mistakenly. There would be no going back from that even though he would never do something so foolhardy again.

He was tainted now and he knew that there would be no more peace for him, not ever.

He didn't _deserve_ peace.

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